What a nice day to wake up and find out that Bishop Briggs, one of my most anticipated artists, just released her debut EP. Bishop Briggs is a stage name of British musician based in Los Angles, Sarah Grace McLaughlin. You may already heard her singles, like River, since last year. Some describe her music as dark pop, some as alternative rock, but one thing for sure, I began to watch her music since the first time I heard her single, River.

Fresh, crisp, and powerful are what cross my mind when I hear Bishop Briggs’ debut EP. The self-title EP consists of 6 songs, featuring some of her famous singles and two new songs, that I bet will easily winning lots of its listener’s heart.

The EP starts with River, the one that successfully put her name into broader acknowledgment. As an opening, this song is not only convince you that you are in the right track to find something good, but also gives you a glimpse of what will you get. Next in line, she puts a new song, Dark Side. If River’s intro is quite heavy, she starts Dark Side with fingerpicking guitar melody before launch her powerful voice in chorus and effortlessly playing the tension. Determined to keep your attention, Briggs put The Way I Do. She greets you with her high-pitch voice that dance along with the humming background, which slightly reminds me of Rag N’ Bone Man’s music. Next, she gives you a relatively slow tempo songs, Wild Horses and Dead Man‘s Arms, but still with more or less same enchanting formula–support by the choir, hand clapping, and finger clicking. Though I don’t find Wild Horses’ tune as gripping and upbeat as the first 3 songs, I like how she combines the heavy electro tunes with the guitar. She close the EP with another new song, The Fire. With a simple drum beat that grip my attention, she put her powerful voice on point. It is indeed a clever move because here, it feels like she restating her music nuance and promising you that her music will linger on your mind, which is exactly what I feel now.

Here, take a listen to Bishop Briggs EP and feel free to share with us what you think of the EP 🙂

You may or may not have heard the name of Mating Ritual before. Mating Ritual is a solo project from Ryan Marshall Lawhon, the lead vocal and guitarist of Pacific Air. Actually, Mating Ritual isn’t a new name in the music industry. According to its official site, Lawhon first introduces the existence of Mating Ritual back in September 2014. Ever since then, Mating Ritual already released some singles and an EP.

Though clearly Mating Ritual has start its journey long before, I still choose it as our most anticipated artist this month because 1) I only found out about Mating Ritual couple weeks ago and instantly love the music and 2) next month, Mating Ritual will release its first full LP, called How You Gonna Stop It?. The LP will be release in two volumes, the first one, consist of 7 songs, has been released earlier this year while the last volume will be out this May, 3) the first volume already won my ¾ heart!

From its official Spotify account we can take a glimpse of how’s the LP sounds like. I myself feel it like a collision between an alternative rock and electro. And the impact of that collision is a burst of energies. Take How You Gonna Stop It? as an example, it is indeed a question that pops up in my mind when I hear this upbeat song, “how you gonna stop this urge to dance and sing along the question of growing up?” The same feeling also occurred in American Muscle and Second Chance. In this album, Mating Ritual worked with Lizzy Land in two songs, Cold and Night Lies. It was thanks to Cold that I found Mating Ritual’s music and began digging more of his music.

On his blog, he talked a bit about his nostalgic point of view of an album, where we used to patiently listening to a whole album because of the lack of ability to skip song when you hear it in CD or even a cassette. I couldn’t agree more with him. Those era train us to not only giving an album a full chance to steal our attention but also becoming a soundtrack to our memories. Though nowadays you can easily skip song in album, I believe, it is safe to say that, you won’t want to skip any song in this album. Yes, that is how good the first volume for me and the base reason why I pick Mating Ritual as our Most Anticipated musician this month.

Here’s the first volume of How You Gonna Stop It?, I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I do 🙂

Kate Nash is back! This time, she’s back with her brand new single called Call Me. I can’t stop listening to this great song since it released on last Friday. That’s why I choose this song as my currently listening for this week.

Melodically enjoyable, lyrically incredible. That’s the first thing that crosses in my mind when the first time I heard this song in Spotify. Call Me has a very catchy melodies from the combination between the guitar’s sound on the chorus, the beat of drum, clapping hands, and of course, the smooth and beautiful voice from Kate Nash herself already made this song so enjoyable, powerful, and really worth to hear. Absolutely and totally a great treat for me.

From some sources that I read, Kate Nash explained about the meaning of this song which I think really deep, motivate, and powerful lyrics. “Call Me is about going through a lot of stuff and surviving it, hitting your lowest point and coming back from that. Once you have, you can help other people get through it too. It’s about pain being useful as it can be used as advice and support and wisdom when other friends/best friend/loved ones go through rough patches. Call on me when you go through it.”

Not just an enjoyable song, but also a meaningful song, right? Her brand new EP, The Agenda, will be released on April 21st digitally. Can’t wait. So, while we wait for her EP, why don’t you try to listen this song and tell us what do you think. Thank you and enjoy the music folks.

I stumbled into Seafret music while checking my music recommendation from Spotify. And boy, what a treat to find their music! Seafret is a duo from Bridlington, UK, consisting of singer Jack Sedman and guitarist Harry Draper. Blank You Out is their latest single, released on last November. Thanks to the guitar intro and Sedman’s soulful voice, this single stole my attention effortlessly. Also, I love how they build the tension during the pre-chorus to the chorus part, it gives power to the lyrics, it force you to feel the message in the song that, missing someone is indeed a torturous thing. And this single also made me check their debut album, Tell Me It’s Real. And I do have a plan to talk about their debut album, meanwhile, let’s enjoy Blank You Out first.

Today is Thursday and I gladly pick Life’s A Bitch from Shooter as our #ThrowBackThursday. Who knew this song from Dawson’s Creek tv series, like me? To be honest, I don’t really remember the story of Dawson’s Creek, but I do remember some songs from this series, like Feels Like Home from Chantal Kreviazuk, I Don’t Want To Wait from Paula Cole, or Ready For A Fall from P.J. Olsen.

Of all the other fabulous songs, I decided Life’s A Bitch as our #TBT because, in case you need a little motivation to keep moving passing this week, well, this one has “uplifting mood” tunes and you can also join Luciana Caporaso to sing the lyric wholeheartedly. So, here, just press the play button and have a nice Thursday, folk!

Finally, one of my favorite Australian musician, Phebe Starr, released her brand new EP called Chronicles EP. Yes! After she teased us with some of her irresistible songs like Feel My Love and Two Hearts, Starr finally introduced us to other song that we’ve been waited for quite long. This great EP was released on March 31st 2017 and include six songs with two brand new songs, Dream and Wonder.

Melodically enjoyable and lyrically incredible. Maybe that’s how I describe about Starr’s brand new EP. I really enjoy every song in this EP and somehow, 23 minutes EP are never enough for me. Starr’s definitely has some kind of skill to make people falling in love with her music. She really know how to combined anthemic tones from synthesizer, the sound from percussion, and her beautiful voices into something that really worth to hear. From powerful melody like Feel My Love until great ballads like Wonder. Emotionally song-writing process already made Phebe Starr created a wonderful music to hear.

If you haven’t hear her awesome brand new EP, why don’t you try to listen her EP below. Just press the play button below and don’t forget to share your opinion about this EP. Enjoy the music and thank you for visiting Kustosica.

Incredibly Wow! That’s the first thought that crossed in my mind when I heard one of Bien’s song called Crowd Goes Wild for the first time. I accidentally found this song through Spotify and I totally falling in love with this song since the first drum beat. Somehow, the melodies are so addicting and I really enjoy this song since the beginning until the end. The combination between the drum beats, the sound from synthesizer, and dance-pop elements makes everything really worth to hear. That’s why I picked this song for our currently listening for this week.

For you who might be haven’t heard about Bien before, here’s a little bit info about Bien. Bien is an indie pop band from Nashville, USA. Bien has their own unique music character. They tried to combined synth melodies, string instruments, and also the element of dance beats into a great and enjoyable kind of music. Their music definitely something really worth to hear. Bien already released their self-titled debut EP on 2016. I have a strong feeling that they will be huge really soon.

If you haven’t heard about their awesome music, I think you have to try to listen one of their song called Crowd Goes Wild below. I promise you will falling in love with this song too and just prepare to press the play button over and over again because I think one time play is not enough. Enjoy the song folks and thank you for already visiting Kustosica.